Did she get any of the other things? Did she do anything illegal? Stupid? Deceptive? Was she sued by a person? Several? A company? Did she want people to believe she was a victim? Relevant who she wanted the attention etc. from? Or just people in general?

Did she want to appear a victim of: discrimination? Injury? Violence? Abuse? Was she actually a victim? Did she sue anyone? Is a specific company involved? If so, would it help to know which company it is?

Injury? Violence? Abuse? Keeping in mind that I am conflating 2 or 3 cases (which overlap and which are all similar in the most important way), she was complaining of many physical problems and perhaps complained of all of those that Galfisk listed. To clarify: statistically speaking, nearly everyone in this situation has claimed harm / injury in at least one of those 3 categories.

Was she actually a victim? Ahh. Now we're zeroing in.

She has seen many doctors, but usually they are anywhere from "unsure" to "baffled" about her case, and they have given her many diagnoses.

Sometimes she obeys the doctor and goes into hospital. Sometimes she finds another doctor and goes into another hospital.

Since I don't know her / them, I am relying on experts (doctors who have published in peer-reviewed journals) in this particular field, and they say that, for the most part, she claims to be or is "likely" to "very likely" a victim of something (let's say "family-related") that she considered to be harmful, and considers still to be harmful, as she grew to adulthood.

Did she sue anyone? I know of one case in which she sued someone or, rather, someones. There may be more cases.

Is a specific company involved? If so, would it help to know which company it is? In this particular case, yes! And I'll go look at my notes again, so I won't get it wrong. But I'll give you a broad hint: it's in the area of communications.

GREAT questions! You and Vesica, together, have put together 99% of the puzzle.

The one remaining question is: why was she involved in a lawsuit?

After looking at my notes, I'll tell you the company involved in the lawsuit, if you like.

I'm super proud of you folks! I thought this would be a hard puzzle, but I'm happy to join a group who love the scientific method as much as I do. Back soon!

Is she complaining that her problems are caused by: high tension power lines? Mobile towers? Radar? Other source of electromagnetic radiation? Windmills? Pollution? Noise?

Wow, lots of great ideas!

And, uh, no, sorry...

Well, okay, Fiona, give 'em a chance!

It would not surprise me if she chose any of those as an "aggravating problem" - it's certainly possible. Most doctors have not contributed much about this problem in the medical literature, because they fail in the diagnoses or think simply "it's all in her mind." The exception (in the medical/psychiatric world), of course, is a handful of folks who have chosen this problem as their field of study.

And [HINT] don't worry about external sources or outdoor situations.

This specific situation is specifically domestic.

Oh, and I am afraid that I made Vesica swerve away, when I wrote that "Munchausen's by proxy" was merely "relevant."

Vesica, you deserve the win, although there is still one slight torque that changes your guess -I hope you see this!

The term I was looking for is "Munchausen by Internet." Which is new-ish. See below.

The question of legality about the actions of these want-to-be-victim people -- it was chiefly about the way they selfishly over-used and abused the time and attention of doctors and nurses, sometimes demanding bullshit surgical attentions, operations, and so on.

I suppose anyone who has seen "The Sixth Sense" has some knowledge of Munchausen By Proxy. (yecch!)

But more recently, these Munchausen folks don't have to make themselves or their kids seriously ill, or ill at all. They simply go to any of many websites where they can get attention for any medical disaster they can think up. Causing great anguish to many sympathetic people is probably the worst of their crimes, if you don't want to think about the dollars and man-hours and surgical operations.

For the best info, google Dr. Marc Feldman, who coined the term "Munchausen by Internet" and whose website has tons of info and links.

Munchausen by Proxy is when a parent/caregiver (statistically, it's usually the mother/other female caregiver, according to Wikipedia) tells a medical professional that their child is ill when the child isn't, and coerces the child into going along with it.

Actually Kaylee, Munchausen by Proxy is usually much darker than that, with the caregiver actually harming the child to induce the illness (as it's sort of hard to get children to go along with it). People that have been given this diagnosis as part of their criminal trials have done all kinds of things, from putting household chemicals into children's food to actually unplugging or disrupting life support systems in the hospitals to make their children ďcodeĒ so that the doctors can rush in and revive them.

Oh, and I am afraid that I made Vesica swerve away, when I wrote that "Munchausen's by proxy" was merely "relevant."Never fear, Fiona. You didnít scare me off. Work reared up and ate me alive so I wasnít around here much. I love*Love*LOVE psych-related puzzles and would have loved to puzzle this one out to the last detail. Stupid work with the stupid earning my living.

Awesome puzzle and I canít believe I didnít think of that. Iíve read quite a bit about the psychological analysis of people who announce to Facebook, Livejournal, WoW or wherever that they have cancer or some disease and give updates etc. for months and months and then it turns out they were lying about the whole thing. CRAZY (but fascinating).

Iíve read quite a bit about the psychological analysis of people who announce to Facebook, Livejournal, WoW or wherever that they have cancer or some disease and give updates etc. for months and months and then it turns out they were lying about the whole thing. CRAZY (but fascinating).

Yes. I had a semi-personal experience with that, as I was mutual friends with a woman who did this, though I did not know her. Her pen name was "Lady Roisin", and she pretended to have cancer, then inserted her "husband", then "ex-husband", "Eli" into the mix. "Eli" then pronounced her dead after a time, but clever Facebook friends of hers, who knew Roisin's real name, noticed she still posted on her family's Facebook pages. "Eli" was no more than a "sock puppet", as the terminology goes. She also created a new identity for herself, but that didn't last long. The cleverness of Dawn Felagund, a moderator of Silmarillion Writer's Guild (SWG), ferreted her out on LJ. "Lady Roisin" broke a lot of my friends' hearts; they'd sincerely worried for her, and mourned her when they thought she was dead. It was a betrayal, plain and simple, and I hope that wherever she is now, she can feel sorry for what she did, someday.

I should clarify, I *am* friends with a woman who did this, though of course they are no longer friends with HER. And there was a lot of division between people who believed her story and people who didn't. Luckily, I didn't know about all this until after it blew wide open - I had friends on both sides of the break and didn't even know why they'd cooled toward each other. Luckily, the rift is healing.

I saw a documentary about these people. The irony is that of course they really are sick to do such a terrible thing - but far from getting support and sympathy for their real illness they get reviled. Sorry, I almost talked myself into feeling sorry for them!